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bubble

An exceedingly rare paper share for an English company traded at the height of the stock mania in the summer of 1720 - perhaps the only known survival of this iconic type of object that appears in numerous satirical prints and plays from the period as the symbol of folly - worthless bits of paper being blown by the wind of speculation.

An image of John Law as Don Quixote, from the volume:
Het Groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid, Amsterdam, 1720,
the focus of a conference to be held at Yale University,
April 17-19, 2008: http://icf.som.yale.edu/GREAT_MIRROR/